Forensic Medicine

The research conducted at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University is carried out in three areas. One concerns the connection between abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids and premature death. Another area is the aetiology/pathogenesis of certain medical findings in infants that often form the basis for the conclusion that the child has been abused. The third area deals with how forensic assessments are evaluated and interpreted by the judicial system.

The research regarding anabolic androgenic steroids has resulted in just over 20 scientific publications, a review article, and three doctoral theses.

In an ongoing doctoral project, pathological changes associated with abuse of anabolic androgenic steroids are being mapped. The issue is being studied based on forensic autopsy material and animal studies. So far, three publications have been made. The defence is planned for 2027.

The area of aetiology/pathogenesis for certain findings in infants has been studied for approximately thirteen years and has resulted in sixteen publications, five of which are included in a doctoral thesis. Part of the project is based on epidemiological registers and patient records. Another part of the project is carried out in collaboration with Prof. Svein Kleiven and associate professor Xiaogai Li, Department of Neuronics, KTH, and is based on injury simulation in biomechanical models, which includes validating the models using well-documented clinical cases.

The interface between forensic assessments and law is included as part of the work within The International Centre for Evidence-Based Criminal Law (EB-CRIME), led by researchers at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala University.

Three levels are studied:

1. The strength of the product itself (how certain can one be that the assessment is correct?).
2. Is there variation among different forensic doctors regarding how they communicate the degree of certainty in the assessment?
3. Does the recipient (prosecutor, judge) perceive the forensic statement in the way the sender intends (tries to convey)?

The first level partially overlaps with the research area on infant findings. The other two levels are studied using constructed cases, surveys, and review of judgments. So far, a study has focused on how forensic doctors' assessments are influenced by the presence of an alternative hypothesis (usually a scenario provided by the suspect (alternative hypothesis) that differs from what the complainant has stated (hypothesis)). Currently, two studies are ongoing: 1) A bias study targeted at judges being conducted in collaboration with a lawyer, a cognitive psychologist, and a researcher in the field of digital forensics. 2) A study examining whether variations in forensic pathologists' ways of formulating the same assessment regarding whether the question of the injuries has been life-threatening influence the court's judgment.

Two projects are conducted in collaboration with Linköping University, which is also the principal for the projects. One deals with addressing classical forensic questions such as the assessment of the postmortem interval or determining that a deceased person found in water has drowned using metabolomics. Another deals with investigating the precise mechanism behind sudden death in alcoholics.

One project is carried out in collaboration with a research group in Canada and concerns determining the postmortem interval using measurements of radioactive decay in biological tissue.